LearnLux - Co-Founders Rebecca Liebman and Michael Liebman

May 29th, 2017

Episode description

You're all in for a special Memorial Day episode, one that almost never saw the light of day. Just a couple days after taping with Rebecca and Michael Liebman from LearnLux, I spilled green tea on my Macbook, rendering it completely unusable. The laptop teased me for a few seconds, then I couldn't click on anything, the screen flickered and went black, and I feared the worst. Roman Kern, a good friend and Senior Director of Operations at MassChallenge, rescued the hard drive and recovered the episode. Add laptop recovery to the massive list of things Roman does better than almost anyone I know. Thanks again man!

I had such a fun time bantering with Michael and Rebecca on this episode. In addition to getting their perspective on LearnLux and the future of the financial services industry, we touched on a hundred other topics: generation divides in social media, their experience as a brother-sister co-founding team, how Michael balances college schoolwork and running a startup, my tendency to finish other people's sentences, which stocks look strong for 2017, how it's increasingly difficult for large companies to attract top talent, and why you can expect Amazon, Google, or Apple to launch a FinTech product in the near future. As you can tell, this conversation ran the gamete, and it's definitely worth listening the whole way through. Enjoy!

Topics Covered:- Who uses SnapChat and who uses Instagram -- the generational divide- How Facebook has turned into a video platform- Why brutal honesty is the biggest hallmark of sibling co-foundership- Why launch a FinTech startup?- How Michael always wanted a cash register as a child - leading to a FinTech career- Finance is completely ubiquitous, and it is traditionally such a negative part of people's lives- How LearnLux aims to change customer behavior by building trust amongst his user base.- How Rebecca and Michael evaluate new technologies to add to the LearnLux product- How Michael balances startup with college coursework, and how the four years of college are actually the best time to start a company- My tendency to finish people's sentences- What I would name my hypothetical venture capital firm- Why I got out of Tesla stock too soon- Why Amazon, Tesla, and Disney are Michael's top 3 stocks for 2017- How Rebecca missed the opportunity to get the "Becca" Snapchat account- The facebook vs. Snapchat rivalry- How the financial services industry is building new products to reach new sets of people- Why it's going to be increasingly difficult for large companies to attract top talent- Why Michael is expecting Amazon, Apple, or Google to launch a financial services product.- Why Credit Karma was brilliant in launching a free online tax return service